


Frozen

by autumnmycat



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Angst, Avatar Shit, Bending, Bending (Avatar), Loss of Bending Ability, Sad, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-22
Updated: 2014-07-22
Packaged: 2018-02-09 22:09:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1999767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autumnmycat/pseuds/autumnmycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From LoK kink meme: Korra reflects on her thoughts when she was by the cliff. Realizing that she was contemplating suicide, she goes to talk to Tenzin about it. Cue Tenzin gathering Korra, her parents and Katara to have a long talk about it, and looking into getting her some help. </p><p>TW: Thoughts of Suicide</p>
            </blockquote>





	Frozen

**Author's Note:**

> So, I didn't realize the kink meme had been dead for two years, so I filled it. I don't really care, it was fun to write. Also, I kind of misunderstood and made this AU: she realizes she's attempting suicide as she's standing on the cliff/Mako never comes/she doesn't get her bending back. And sorry if Korra is OOC and over dramatic. I love teh angst. lol

“Spirits.”

The word, even though it barely leaves her lips, crashes on the rocks below.

She feels icy. Her head, her chest, her heart, her thoughts — they are colder than the wind of the South Pole, which smacks into her unforgivingly. She is frozen. Literally? Metaphorically?

Korra tries to move away from the edge, but she can’t. Her arms and legs are heavy. 

She tells herself, “you are nothing.” 

She looks at her hands, which are just her hands, and grips them and tries to bend, tries to shoot fire, water, ice, soil, anything, anything, anything, anything, not just wind, but she can’t, she can’t do anything, and she has lost, she has lost, Amon has won, and she _has lost._

She can hear Amon telling her that she is nothing, she repeats that she is nothing, she believes she is nothing. Her bending was always what made her special. Her power was what made her who she was. Now that the Avatar is divorced from Korra, she feels lost, she has lost, she is lost.

For the first time in her life, Korra _hates_ herself.

She does not know what is happening. She can’t stand the sorrow and pain. Even though she knows she’s standing at the edge of a cliff, she feels like she is a great distance away, watching her past image frozen in space. A leg twitches, a foot advances, a body moves forward.

And then a single tear slides off her face and drops into the ocean below her feet.

_‘No.’_

Anguish slices her in two, and she bends over, body shaking as she is wracked with sobs. She doesn’t want this, whatever _this_ is, and she backs away from the edge. Korra is back in her body again and is petrified of what she almost had done. Her hands press against her face, her neck, her abdomen to make sure she is still alive because she is having a hard time deciding if she is or not.

When she turns around and begins to sprint back to the village, her hands still search for her pulse, which is ridiculous since she can’t hear the wind whistling by her ears because her heart is pounding so loud.

Time escapes and the next thing she is aware of is throwing the door of the healer’s house open, seeing Tenzin and Katara’s grim faces become shocked at the sound of the door cracking against the wall, and her face crumbling to bits.

“Korra—“ her name sounds foreign to her “—what’s gotten into you?”

She hiccups, trying to put into words the feeling squeezing her chest. How is she supposed to speak when her throat is closed shut, when the world is whirling by her? 

“Tenzin, grab her!” are Katara’s words before the hot air of the hut smothers her and her vision cuts out.

…

It is only a few moments later that she opens her eyes, but to Tenzin it feels like an eternity.

Worry has made him forget what patience is, and he starts in on her.

“Korra, what’s wrong? Are you alright?”

Korra blinks, notices Katara in the background as she tensely stares at them, and lets out a stale breath. She is laying in Tenzin’s arms, only a few feet from the door.

“No.” For once, she is honest. “I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry for what? What’s going on?” Tenzin sputters, paternal instinct taking over.

Before she can think of a more kinder way to phrase it, she blurts, “I tried to kill myself.”

Korra thought the air was tense before, but now she can’t even breathe. Tenzin yanks her up and almost throws her in a chair, making her eyes spin around in her head.

“You what?”

“I don’t know, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know what I was doing—“

“How could you—why did you think—why would you—“

Tenzin can’t find the words to translate his shock and fear and anger, only trips over his words. Katara, however, is calm because she understands. She crouches down in front of Korra and puts a hand on her knee.

“I know it seems like this can’t get any better, like you’ll never pull out of this, but you will.”

Even though Katara’s words are kind something inside Korra snaps.

“How do you know?!” she screams. Tears flow down her cheeks again, and her own rawness scares her. “What use am I if I can’t bend?! I’m nothing! I’m nothing!”

Katara puts her arms around her, and Korra sobs into her shoulder, hands dead at her sides. Tenzin looks like he is about to start up again, but Katara looks at him and shakes her head. The best thing to do is let her get it out of her system. Right now she is inconsolable.

“H-how am I-I supposed to s-save anyone? I c-can’t even save myself!”

She cries and cries, but eventually her own sobs become a low hum in the back of her brain. Korra realizes she is sitting on a bed with Tenzin, Katara, and her parents placed in chairs across from her.

When her mother quietly says, “We’re worried about you, honey,” Korra is still trying to piece together how she got there. She looks at her hands, which are still blue from the cold, and figures she has not blacked out for too long.

When she doesn’t respond, Katara and Tenzin look at each other.

“Korra,” Tenzin begins, pausing as if to search for the right words to say, “we want to help you.”

Words that are not hers flash through her head, ‘ _Why do you care?/Don’t worry about me./I’m better off this way,_ ’ and she has to catch her breath. She is scaring herself.

This time, Katara tries. “I know you must feel incredible loss right now.” A small, melancholy smile flashes on her face for barely a second. “I know how it feels. When I lost Aang, I…I had to reteach myself how to live, how to live alone.”

Korra doesn’t make eye contact, only stares at the white sheets she has wrapped herself in.

“It feels like a part of you has been ripped out, doesn’t it?”

Finally, this gets to her. Korra snaps her head up and meets Katara’s eyes.

“It’s not a _part_ of me,” she exclaims almost breathlessly, patting her chest for emphasis. “Amon has taken everything from me: who I am, who I’m supposed to be.”

“Korra,” Tonraq says sternly, pretending like he isn’t being torn apart seeing his daughter in despair, “your bending does not define you.”

“It doesn’t?” Her eyes were wide, but her face was almost stoic. “Then what else am I?”

Senna doesn’t even wait a second to respond.

“You’re my daughter.”

Tonraq jumps in.

“A friend.”

Katara next.

“A beautiful young lady.”

Tenzin.

“A smart, capable, caring human being.”

Korra thought she was done crying, that she couldn’t possibly have more tears to cry, but they are running down her face and onto the sheets below.

“We love you so, so much. All of us.” Senna’s voice is soothing, as if it’s rubbing Korra’s back and handing her tea. “And we’re so proud. No amount of bending can change that.”

“I know, I know all of that.” Korra rubs her eyes and wipes her nose on her sleeve. “I’m sorry. It’s so irrational—“

“No, we do understand,” Tenzin reassures her. “You have internalized the duty of the Avatar in your own self. It’s not rational, but emotions are never rational.”

“I just want to help people,” she sniffs.

“We know,” Katara says smoothly. “But, you can’t help anyone if you first don’t help yourself.”

“Suicide is not something to take lightly.”

“You need achieve peace of mind, and we believe it’s not something you can do on your own.”

Tonraq crosses his arms and leans back as Senna leans forward and puts a hand on her daughter’s knee. “We’ll help you,” she says, “and we’ll find someone to help you, too. We just want to see you love yourself as much as we do.”

Korra takes a shuttering breath in, drops her head as if she’s bowing, and sharply spits out, “T-thank you.”

She doesn’t know why she’s feeling this way.

She doesn’t know when she let being the Avatar get in the way of being Korra.

She doesn’t know when she stopped having her own identity. 

But maybe she’s willing to think about herself for once.

Maybe—

“We just want you to be happy.”

—Korra’s willing to let herself thaw.


End file.
